46 - Psi-ence Fiction

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Psi-ence Fiction by Chris Boucher

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London Wl 2 OTT

First published 2001

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format © BBC 1963 Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

Typeset in Garamond by Keystroke,

Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press

Ltd, Northampton

For Lynda

Chapter One

It was so very dark now the moon had set. Chloe shivered. What was it about darkness that

made it so scary? she wondered.

Something was moving in the undergrowth off to the left. She could hear it quite

distinctly. Fear prickled across her skin with a sudden feverish chill.

What on earth had possessed her to come into this stupid wood in the middle of the stupid

night? She should have objected. They could have done this during the day. It would have

been warmer for one thing. Just because the other four were up for it, that didn't mean

they were right. They had no evidence the murder had happened after dark so there was no

reason to hold the seance after dark either.

The shivering was momentarily vivid, a twitching shudder that seemed to run through her

every muscle. What was she frightened of? she scolded herself. She wasn't a child for God's

sake. This was only a patch of trees and undergrowth and stuff. She wouldn't have been

afraid to be here in the daylight and there was nothing here now that wasn't here then. A

few bits and bobs that only came out in the dark perhaps, but nothing big.

She found the urge to run was almost an ache, an itch inside the skull. She told herself it

was just a race memory of predators that came for you in the night. Somehow, she thought,

we all of us remember crouching, frozen in blind terror, as pitiless claws and teeth tore

at us. And we know we've lost the light for ever. And we know we will never see the sun

rise again. Something was moving in the under-growth off to the right now. Chloe found she

could barely breathe.

'Bloody rabbits make a racket don't they?' Tommy said softly.

He was shorter than Chloe and though she couldn't actually see him in the suffocating

darkness she still found his floppy-haired Hugh Grant impersonation reassuring -tall-

sounding and confident. 'Is that what it is?' she gasped, trying not to sound too relieved

and eager.'Rabbits?'

Off to one side Ralph said,'Could be badgers. Fox maybe.' Ralph was taller and heavyset but

there was no immediate comfort to be taken from his dour and plodding presence.

Somewhere close in front of her Meg snorted.'It's probably me,' she said. 'I've got half a

mile of sodding brambles wrapped round my ankles here.' Chloe found Meg beautiful in a

square-faced ugly sort of way, and so much braver than she was herself.

Joan said, 'It's most likely to be rats.' She was small and sharp-featured. Chloe thought

of her as elfin, knowing that elves were reputed to be malicious as well as

delightful.'Rats are drawn to any place of death.'

'Only if the corpse is still there,' Ralph said witheringly.

They're psychic,' Joan persisted. Absolutely the most psychic of all animals. Only we have

greater powers.'

'Absolutely the second most psychic of all animals then,' Tommy mocked.

'I wouldn't care but these were my best chinos,' Meg complained.

Sensible choice," Ralph said, 'given the circumstances.'

'Well frankly,' Meg said, 'I think wellies and jeans are a bit insensitive even for a shit-

shoveller. Given the circumstances.'

It's waste management, Ralph said. 'And it's only one part of the course.'

A binman by any other name&'

'Oh, sorry I'm not reading something useful like EastEnders and Emmerdalel

'Media.'

'A showbiz wannabe by any other name?' Tommy chipped in.

'Don't you ever get tired of being a smart-arse?' Meg retorted.

'What did you mean about wellies and jeans being insen-sitive?' Chloe asked, thinking of

the boots and jeans she was wearing herself.

'Show respect for the dead,' Meg said,'if you want them to show respect for you. That's how

I was brought up.'

'Really?' Chloe said, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. She had never thought

of Meg as coming from a background of spiritualism.

'No not really,' Meg giggled. She leant in from the darkness to whisper and Chloe could

smell the beer on her breath. Come on Chloe, pay attention. And stop taking everything so

bloody seriously. It's just a laugh for God's sake.'

Ralph said, 'Look are we sure this is even in the right direction?'

Joan had been leading them down the narrow path and the others had followed her when she

stepped off it and pushed her way through the undergrowth to a clearing where she had

stopped, obliging them to do the same. They were standing uncertainly and unseeingly now,

waiting for someone to take the lead.

Joan said confidently, 'This was where she was murdered.'

Joan was always positive even when she wasn't, Chloe thought, and said, 'I can't see a

thing. And my stupid torch has packed up.'

'The dead tree is over there.'Joan flashed her torch into the darkness, illuminating

nothing in particular. 'We're standing in the clearing where he killed her. Cant you feel

it? He filled this place with his evil. Can't you feel his malevolence? Can't you feel the

residual fear? The place is full of horror.

Chloe could feel it. Joan was right It was like a nightmare you had woken from but couldn't

quite shake off. This must be where he killed her. She could feel the terror.

We don't know the killer was a man,' Ralph said.

Yeah right. Meg said scornfully. It's mostly women who beat women to death

'The victim was a girl. Ralph said, not a woman. And I thought the identity of the killer

was one of the things we were here to try and find out.

Tommy sniggered. Maybe we should ask the psychic rats, presumably they'd know. How about it

Joan? Any good with rodents?'

'If you weren't going to be serious about this,' Joan hissed, you shouldn't have come with

us.'

I see,' Tommy said. What you mean is when it doesn't work it's going to be my fault, is

that it?

That's it exactly, she said.

It couldn't possibly be _)*>«/" fault.'

One sceptical presence is all it takes to break the circuit and block the contact.'

If you say so

T do sa1* so. Joan snapped And if I'm acting as medium, then what I say goes tonight all

right? Or do you want to take over the seance Tommy? Well do you?'

'No.'

'So what I say goes?'

So what you say goes, he conceded in a bored voice.

A breeze stirred the unseen trees around them. Chloe noticed that the sound it made was

weirdly human, a sort of bronchial moan, almost a wheezing. The temperature seemed to be

dropping rapidly. Is it getting colder? she asked.

'Are we going to do this or what?' Ralph demanded.

'Link hands,'Joan said.'Form the circle.'

Chloe was glad of the excuse for physical contact. She was getting the oddest feeling that

they were being watched, that something was watching them from the darkness. She reached

out as they groped for each other's hands. Or was it someone? Was someone watching them?

Was it him? Could it be that the murderer was here and he was watching them? Weren't

murderers supposed to come back to the scene of the crime? She snatched at Ralph's and

Tommy's extended hands and clung on grimly.

Are you OK, Chloe? Tommy asked.

Just cold,' she said, but in truth she could feel the watcher now and she knew he was

watching her and her alone. The murderer was focusing on her and she knew she would be his

next victim.

Chloe,' she heard a distant voice whisper and wheeze. Chloe.'

'Don't do that,' she protested angrily 'It's not funny. I'm scared enough as it is."

Leave her alone, Meg muttered. Stop teasing her,you two.'

'I didn't do anything,' Tommy said.

Ralph said, Neither did I.'

Well one of you's playing silly buggers.'

"Shut up and concentrate,' Joan commanded. 'All of you. I cant do this on my own. Clear

your minds. Concentrate on her. Think only of the dead girl. Just her. We call her to us

through the focus of our collective will.'

His focus, his will, was calling to her, Chloe thought.'Chloe,' he breathed.'Chloe.' She

concentrated on the hands she was holding. She closed her eyes against the darkness.

Chloe,' the whisper said and she could hear the cruel smile in it.

With the circle settled and silent Joan began to chant softly. Come to us, come to us, come

to us who call you, come to us, come to us, come to us who love you, come to us, come to

us, come to us, come to us, come to us, come to us now:

Once the chant had been established the other three joined in. 'Come to us,.come to us,

come to us, come to us, come to us, come to us now:

Repetition, Chloe thought, as she too began muttering the pointless words, that's all it

takes. The steady rhythm to make the trance, to make the magic, to make the music. The

rhythmic beat is like steady running. 'Come to us, come to us, come to us.' Running keeps

us from the slavering teeth and the scrabbling claws. 'Come to us come to us come to us

come to us.' It amplifies the tune of the blood so you can feel its power. It keeps beating

back the darkness and the sounds of the darkness. It was working. She could feel it

working. The rhythm reaches into us and we have the power to see, we have the power to

know, we have the power to control. Come to us come to us come to us come to us: She felt

stronger. She felt the summons tugging at the dead girl, pulling her to them, pulling her

back across the void. It was working. She was coming.

It was then Chloe heard the howl of pain and anger, and she opened her eyes. The wind had

whipped up suddenly, lashing the trees and swirling dead leaves and bracken fronds around

them. The thick, blind gloom of the wood had lightened and in the unearthly glimmer she saw

the killer crashing through the undergrowth towards them. He looked monstrous, tall and

wild, and he ran in huge strides, lifting his legs high like a triple jumper. His face was

twisted with hate. His fury was insane. He was coming straight at her. He was coming

straight for her.

Frozen with fear, Chloe closed her eyes again tightly and tried not to scream. He was a

ghost. He was a demon. He was a figment of her imagination. He wasn't real. He couldn't be

real. 'Come to us come to us come to us come to us.' She raised her voice in the chant,

doing her best to block out the sound of him. 'Come to us come to us come to us come to us!

But above her own voice and the chanting of the others she could hear now words in the

howling.

'listen to me! Listen to me you little bitch!' the killer was raging. 'You will listen to

me and do as I tell you! You will do as I tell you, you little bitch!' Something struck her

on the shoulder and thumped against her back and she lurched forward stumbling into the

others, struggling to keep her balance and stay on her feet. The chant became ragged and

then stopped abruptly.

'Oh for God's sake Chloe,' Tommy said,'what is the matter with you!'

Chloe what's wrong? Are you in pain?'Joan said.

'Are you all right?' Ralph said.

What happened, Chloe?' Meg asked.

And then close to Chloe something unseen grunted and roared. A whisper in her ear echoed in

the bones of her head. 'Die,' it said. 'Die for ever in my darkness, bitch.'

Chloe lost all chance of control. She broke the circle, pushed the others aside and ran.

Raw panic drove her on and gave her unexpected strength and speed. She plunged through

patches of scrub, cannoned into small trees and blundered into low branches, but she kept

going. The glim-mer of light had vanished completely and the darkness was impenetrable

again, but it made no difference to her. She ran flat out with no sense of direction and no

thought of obstacles or barriers. Only the demon striding and leaping behind her was real.

Then abruptly she weakened, and as she weakened she began to trip over roots and stumble as

her feet caught in the tangles of ground creepers. She fell. Suddenly her legs were aching

unbearably and she was very tired, but she scrambled up and shambled on. She fell again,

harder this time, collapsing and sprawling headlong into the under-growth. This time she

just wanted to lie there where she had fallen but she heard the demon coming for her. She

heard him crashing and roaring, closer and closer, louder and louder. She heard him

shouting her name and she dragged herself upright and ran on. She ran desperately until her

breath was rasping in her throat and filling her ears with its sound, but behind her she

could still hear the killer rushing and laughing and raging.

The darkness was unrelenting and she was exhausted, terrified, lost. Suddenly she wanted to

look back. She wanted to see it. She knew the light was there and she wanted to see

something, anything. She wanted to put an end to the blind fear. But she knew her death was

there, ready to snatch her if she looked. She knew it was ready to swallow her being if she

listened and it was calling to her constantly now.'Chloe? Chloe!' Now a woman's voice in

the distance, now a man's. 'Chloee! Chlooeee?' And now it whispered to her. 'Die,' it

gloated, so close it seemed to be inside her head. 'Die in darkness, bitch!'

It was all around her, near and far, outside and inside. 'Chlooooeeee!' It was mocking her,

sneering, leering. She must not look back no matter how much she wanted to. She must not

stop running no matter how much she wanted to. She must get out of the wood. She must get

out of the darkness.

Without warning the black blankness ahead of her thinned and clotted into patterns of

lighter and darker shapes. She glimpsed momentary specks of brightness like sparks from a

fire. Almost without realising it she crashed into the bram-bles at the edge of the wood,

ripped through them, plunged down through an empty ditch and found herself in open pasture.

Clear of the ancient gloom under the trees it was possible to tell the sky from the ground,

and in the distance she could see the lights of the University of East Wessex. She

staggered a few paces further into the field. Relief dragged at her, draining what little

strength she had left. She sank to her knees on the damp grass and sobbed for breath. She

could see the lights of safety there across the open fields. She knew the way back. She'd

beaten it, him, whatever it was - ghost, demon, murderer. Whatever it was she'd beaten it.

'You think so?' It was a whisper and was followed immedi-ately by cackles and hoots of

savage laughter that seemed to surround and buffet her. 'You can't run from me, you stupid

bitch.' It was an agony in her skull like the burning ice of a migraine attack. She pushed

herself upright.

'Chlooee!' Behind her the voices were back. She looked. Small lights danced in the wood,

calling her name. She turned and fled, running for the safety of the campus. She ran across

the open fields without looking back, without listening to the voices in the wood or in her

head. Her only purpose was to reach the stockade of light and brightness in the middle of

the endless plains of darkness.

She was still running when she woke with a start in her study bedroom in the student hall

of residence. Daylight was bright behind the curtains. Someone was banging on the door. All

the unreal terror and insane confusion of the night before vanished. It was a dream, she

thought, just a stupid dream. Something must have disagreed with her. Something had screwed

with her brain chemistry, big time. She tried to remember what she had been doing the

evening before. Had there been a party?

There was more knocking on the door. 'Chloe? It's me. Meg. Are you in there?'

Just a minute,' she mumbled.

She got out of bed. She was naked. She slept that way for comfort though there was also an

element of vanity since she was proud of her slim body and pale, unblemished skin.

It was as she was looking for her bathrobe that she realised her hands and face were

scratched and she was covered in developing bruises.

The Doctor was frowning at the control console. "There's a reason for everything,' he

remarked. The TARDIS had just spun off the time line and was moving motionlessly across the

transdimensional direction loops towards an undiffer-entiated focal point. It left the

Doctor with little idea of when they might be going and where, and the more the TARDIS

manoeuvred the less idea he had.You start knowing nothing and end up knowing less, he

thought, there's a lesson there somewhere. All he could be sure about was that wherever and

whenever it was going to be, it was going to be soon; and that the TARDIS would have some

reason for doing what it was doing. 'That's not the same as a purpose of course,' he went

on. 'People often confuse reason and purpose. A reason is simply an explanation. And

everything has an explanation.' Not for the first time he had a passing urge to thump the

control console in frustration.

Leela had recognised all the signs. She had been carefully observing the movements, which

were not proper move-ments, and the sounds, which were more like feelings, that the TARDIS

sometimes made and the Doctor's reaction to them. What was happening at the moment

suggested to her that the TARDIS was again about to stop, or drop, or whatever it was it

did before she and the Doctor were able to go outside. Experience made her equally certain

that the Doctor would have no idea what they would be facing when they opened the doors of

what she used to think of as the travelling hut. 'So what is a purpose?' she asked,

checking that her knife was securely sheathed and making sure the small travelling pouch

she had added to her belt still contained a selection of essentials, among them a

sharpening stone, a high-energy food bar and a comb. Of course she knew now that the TARDIS

was a very large non-travelling hut inside a much smaller, travelling box. Everything had

an explanation. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, TARDIS, was the explanation of the

hut-in-the-box and one day she would understand it, she was sure.

What?' the Doctor said vaguely, not taking his eyes from the console's unhelpful telltales.

It was slightly shaming, he was thinking, that he had so little actual control. He should

have paid more attention. At the very least he should have got out some manuals at some

stage and tinkered a bit. A bit more. It wasn't as if he could take the systems back to the

manufacturer for an overhaul. If something needed doing he would have to do it himself.

Something did need doing, of course, and it was irritating that he didn't know what it was.

Thumping the control console would clearly be stupid. Kicking it was quite appealing too.

While he was thinking this he suddenly became conscious that Leela was watching him

intently. She was trying to look casual about it but there was no disguising her attention.

Unconsciously she had also taken up the first stage of her preparing-to-fight stance. Her

weight was slightly forward on the balls of her feet, her hand was on the hilt of the large

knife he could not persuade her to give up carrying. She obviously sensed that something

was about to happen. It was interesting, he thought, how sensitive she was becoming to the

way the TARDIS func-tioned. It was a pity aggression was always her first response to the

unknown, but her early conditioning as a warrior had been thorough and counteracting it

would take more time and patience than he presently had.

Leela had recognised other unrelated signs. Her growing experience of the Doctor suggested

he was in one of his dark moods and she was sure that the longer he kept glaring at the

controls of the TARDIS the more irritated and unreasonable he would become. From time to

time she had heard him talking to the machine as if it was a friend and that had been

peculiar enough, but offering it personal insults and threatening it was mad and that

looked to be what he was once more about to do. All shamans were mad, she reminded herself,

that was the nature of their magic, or else they were fakes. The Doctor said they were both

- mad and fake. He got angry if she suggested he was a shaman. He never saw it as a

compliment to his powers, only as an insult to his mind and his honesty. She remembered

when the tribal shaman had gone truly mad. There was no magic then. There had only been

danger for everyone and death for him. But there was an explanation if you thought about

it, and there were ways to lighten the Doctor's mood if you knew what interested him. 'If a

reason is simply an explanation,' she said,'what is a purpose?'

The Doctor said, 'I've often wondered that myself,' and smiled his sudden, dangerous

smile.'Perhaps there isn't a purpose. Or perhaps when we know all the reasons we'll know

the purpose. Or perhaps that is the purpose: to know all the reasons.'

'I am sorry I asked,' Leela said. 'You are making fun of me.'

'Never,' the Doctor said emphatically, but still smiling. 'I never make fun of you for

asking questions. Even ones I can't answer.'

'But you do get angry'

'No. I am patience personified. You should know that by now.'

The TARDIS narrowed the multiverse options, gradually slipping towards the asymmetrical

anomaly that was attract-ing it and pulling it towards a choice.

'Very well. Do you know where we are going then?' Leela asked.

That is not a question,' the Doctor said. "That is a deliberate provocation.' He looked

around for his hat.

Leela said,'Your hat is in the pocket of your coat.'

'I doubt that,' the Doctor said, finding it in the left-hand pocket of his long overcoat

almost immediately and pulling it out. I wasn't looking for my hat as it happens.'

'Your jelly babies are in the other pocket,' Leela offered.

'Now you are beginning to annoy me.' The Doctor's smile was losing some of its spontaneity.

The TARDIS coalesced all the remaining chances into one inevitability, ground towards it,

settled into it and, satisfied with its efforts to reach a balance, unlinked itself from

the probability grids. As the systems disengaged the central column of the control console

drifted calmly down to a stop.

The Doctor reached for the switch which, Leela knew, would turn on the observation screen

and show them what was outside. 'Are we where you think we are?' she asked innocently.

'I think so,' the Doctor said.

'And that is where?' she prompted.

'Here,' the Doctor said.

'There you see,' Leela said triumphantly. 'You said you would not make fun of me for asking

questions and you are making fun of me for asking questions.' She knew it was not really

worthy of a warrior, but she had found that she relished such small victories. The Doctor

talked so much more fluently than she did. He knew so much more than she did and he made no

attempt at all to hide it from her. Sometimes it had made her angry though this was not

such a time.

'You were trying to make me angry,' he said reasonably. 'To prove a point. A rather

pointless point as you'd see if you thought about it reasonably.'

Leela shrugged.'You do not know what I was trying to do.'

The Doctor flicked the switch and looked at the obser-vation screen. 'You think not?' He

was grinning wolfishly now.

'You do not know everything,' Leela went on.

'Of course not,' the Doctor said cheerfully.'So you can stop sulking, can't you.'

'I am not sulking,' Leela said, sounding sulky even to herself.

'Look.' The Doctor nodded towards the screen. 'Here's a particularly frustrating example of

what I don't know.'

The on-screen field of vision was slowly widening to show that the TARDIS had fetched up in

a wood of some kind. Beyond the thickets of silver birch and elm scrub inter-spersed with

mature oak trees, a cluster of glass and metal buildings could be seen in the distance. The

low, square towers and black, shiny blocks looked new and carefully proportioned but still

they stood out starkly in a wide landscape of long hedgerows and scattered islands of old

broad-leaved trees.

I don't know where we are,' the Doctor said.

Leela stared hard at the screen, scanning the undergrowth for predators.

Chapter Two

They were walking past the parapsychology laboratory when John Finer, physicist and one of

the more respected of the younger professors in the University of East Wessex, suddenly

spoke.'Charlatan?' he said loudly, as though in the middle of a conversation. 'No, I

wouldn't say the man's a charlatan.' Then he scowled, squeezing the habitual half-smile

from his long, narrow face.'To call Hitchins a charlatan would be a gross insult to

charlatans everywhere.'

Bill Parnaby, philosopher and a friend despite their funda-mental disagreements on almost

everything, shook his head sadly.'Childish or what?'

Finer looked down at the small, dark man beside him and raised an eyebrow. 'Childlike

perhaps.'

Parnaby shook his head more vigorously, and said with mock disdain, 'It was childish. Why

didn't you just bang on his lab door and run away?'

Finer smiled. 'I would have done but he'd probably have included that in his poltergeist

data.'

Parnaby chortled, unable to suppress his amusement any longer. 'Is it possible,' he

suggested, 'that you might be the teeniest bit envious?'

'Of?'

'The Kellerfield Research Fellowship.'

'The science of "things that go bump in the night"? Oh please.' It was Finer's turn to be

disdainful, though in his case it was genuine. 'Credit me with a little more taste if not

integrity'

'I'm glad to see you're not depressed anyway,' Parnaby commented.

Depressed?' Finer frowned.'Why should I be depressed?'

'It's reading week.'

'So?'

Parnaby shrugged a small, slightly embarrassed shrug. 'I've noticed you tend to get a bit

withdrawn around this time of year.'

Finer looked surprised. 'I do?'

'A touch of seasonal affective disorder perhaps?'

'Maybe reading week gives me time to think about the waste of resources in general and our

friend Hitchins in particular. That's enough to depress anybody'

They had reached the tiny room which Parnaby had been allocated by office administration

with, as he told it, a rather dismissive: you're a thinker for God's sake, how much space

do you need anyway? Parnaby unlocked the door. 'I'm told his funding is particularly

generous,' he said. 'No converted cupboards for the Kellerfield Research Fellow'

'Now who's being envious?' Finer asked, following him in and flopping down in the more

comfortable of the two small armchairs which took up all the space not occupied by an

untidy desk and some overstacked book shelves.

'I make no secret of it,' Parnaby said.'I would kill for a study like he's got and enough

money not to have to do any more popcorn lectures on piffle like time travel and the

paradoxes thereof.'

'You love it,' Finer scoffed.

'This is not what I was led to expect from academic life in general and my academic life in

particular,' Parnaby sighed, rooting through precarious stacks of paper.

'What you mean is,' Finer was grinning,'nobody told you it was going to be this much fun.'

Parnaby did not look up from his search. 'Define fun.'

'Playing the wild man of philosophy for all those impres-sionable young females? You don't

get them queuing to hear my lectures.'

'If your next observation is that philosophy is the new rock-and-roll I shall throw up that

meagre and revolting lunch you just bought me.'

Finer did his best to look hurt. "The Developmental Engineering Department's not short of

funds, but our spon-sors demand detailed accounts and they frown on frivolity.'

'You mean you're going to charge it to expenses?' Parnaby found the notes for his

forthcoming lecture on the impos-sibility of time travel and proffered them. Have I

mentioned that you're the stereotypical mean Yorkshireman?'

On a number of occasions.' Finer got up from the chair and accepted the lecture notes

without smiling. 'Thanks for these. I'm interested to understand your reasoning.'

'You could have come along and listened,' Parnaby suggested. 'I do take questions from the

floor'

'I can't sit in your audiences,' Finer said. I find all that screaming and seat-wetting

distracting. I suppose it's inevitable though,' he smiled. 'Philosophy being the new rock-

and-roll.'

They stood outside the TARDIS looking round at the wood and the pastures beyond. The leaves

of some of the decid-uous trees were showing hints of yellows and reds. There were black

fruits on the tangles of barbed creepers and shiny red seed pods on rambling thorn bushes.

Everything was bathed in cool, early autumn sunshine which cast light shadows and deepened

and enriched the pale colours of the ripe meadow grasses in the nearby fields. The Doctor

was entranced. 'This is Earth,' he said beaming delightedly. 'I like this planet, it's one

of my absolute favourites.'

'Are you sure?' Leela asked. 'You said you did not know where we were.' She was still

watching and listening for predators but apart from the small scuttlings and twitterings

that would be expected in a place like this she had heard nothing, and all she had seen

were tiny, timid flyers and small, nervous tree-climbers. Although she knew there were

always larger creatures that fed on such smaller ones there was no sign of anything big and

threatening in the imme-diate area.

That was before I smelt the air and felt the sun,' the Doctor said.

Leela frowned. 'We are standing in the shade.'

The Doctor ignored the contradiction. And look,' he said, gesturing towards the bushes,

blackberries and rose hips.' He pointed up at the trees.'Finches and squirrels. We are in

the northern temperate zone.' He strode to one of the bushes and picked a fat blackberry

heavy with juice. 'And the autumn is just beginning. A magical time.' He ate the berry with

lip-smacking relish. 'Try some of these. They're almost as good as jelly babies.'

Leela shook her head. I do not like jelly babies,' she said.

'I promise you they're not poisonous,' the Doctor said, picking more. 'Trust me, I'm the

Doctor.'

'I trust you, Doctor,' Leela said, making no move to join him but looking instead towards

the distant buildings. 'Are we going there?'

'A pleasant walk in the afternoon sunshine?' The Doctor smiled.'I think so.'

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Psi-enceFictionbyChrisBoucherPublishedbyBBCWorldwideLtd,Woodlands,80WoodLaneLondonWl2OTTFirstpublished2001Copyright©ChrisBoucher2001ThemoralrightoftheauthorhasbeenassertedOriginalseriesbroadcastontheBBCFormat©BBC1963DoctorWhoandTARDISaretrademarksoftheBBCISBN0563538147ImagingbyBlackSheep,copyright©B...

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46 - Psi-ence Fiction

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